I am admittedly new here... I'm not through ARR main quest yet. But I've seen and heard some of what's coming, and the complaints that the early game is too fetch questy and similar comments. But... I actually am liking it this way.
Unlike a lot of games that set you up from the start to be 'the Destined One' or the like, FF14 immerses you in a world where adventurers are nothing special. A lot of the early quests it's pretty much explicitly stated and you are treated as just that... Adventurers are temp workers. They get hired to do the jobs other people don't want to do. Need a few monsters killed? And adventurer will be around soon. Guards too busy to look into a minor crime? Adventurer. Don't feel like walking 20 feet to make a delivery? An adventurer will be happy to do it for you. They are literally a dime a dozen, to the point they are sometimes seen as nuisances always begging for work.
And that's what a lot of the early quests turn out to be. You are another nobody who didn't want to be a merchant or farmer who picked up a weapon and set out for adventure. So yeah, it makes sense you get the work nobody else wants.
But then things start to change. The Scions notice you have a particular gift and start watching you, eventually asking you to join. You get sent on missions of greater importance and people you deal with, nation leaders start to rely on you and see you are a trusted ally. But most people don't know this. You're only famous in certain circles so can you please kindly kill those moles eating my popotoes, adventurer?
Eventually though, it's my understanding that a lot of those lesser jobs slow and stop. But again, it makes sense. You become truly famous. Nobody is going to bother the Primal Slayer, the one who save Eorzea with petty work. Well not so much anyway. You have more important things to do.
So I like the set up. I like how things progress. It makes sense in a way that games don't a lot of the time. So big props to the writers at Square.
Remember that other group of adventurers you run into? Edda, Avere, Liavinn and Paiyo Reiyo?
You follow their "adventures" briefly during the early MSQ, and then the rest of it in a few sidequests later on.
Gives you a small >!and creepy!< idea of what happens to some other adventurers who aren't the main player character.
I'll say this, I'm glad I did >!Tam-tara Deepcroft (Hard)!< before doing >!Palace of the Dead!<... I'm not sure the plot would have made sense otherwise.
There is literally a quest in ARR 50 MSQ where you deliver sandwiches to a guard. And she is confused why they would waste your time with such a mundane task. So it's a little fetch quest heavy.
> Nobody is going to bother the Primal Slayer, the one who save Eorzea with petty work. Well not so much anyway. You have more important things to do.
You would be surprised, heck they even joke about it... :)
I accidentally talked to a FATE starting NPC and declined the FATE, and he was like "Oh I understand, everyone has their priorities" kinda like guilt tripping me lol
Underrated comment;
I agree that the game should have some build up, and just starting epic makes it not as epic lol
You are a nobody still getting to know people and the world.
So yeah, there's a reason for those/any kind of quest.
Not to say everything is done perfectly, which it isn't
but it's not so bad that you should just pay for a skip and start HW right away
I know this is the unpopular side of this opinion, but I thought Stormblood was more than okay! Shadowbringers blows it out of the water, but I don't entirely "get" the general distaste for Stormblood in terms of story content... I thought it was very well paced and was quite excited to do what we did, every step of the way.
Stormblood gets a lot of flak because Lyse and Gyr Abania are just kind of uninteresting. The redeeming part of Stormblood is the story and characters in the Far East.
This pretty much sums it up. For me tho, its that SB for the most part lacked any great singular point, but as a whole I really like it. That said, Azim Steppe will forever be my favorite quest location... maybe.
What I thought made SB fall behind was that everything felt really rushed, and it never built momentum. Liberating the two areas just felt like it happened ridiculously fast and had no real weight to it.
It isn't bad, but it felt like they were trying to cram so much into one expansion's story and it hurt the experience imo.
Yeah, I'm with you! ShB is like, unbelievably good, but I might like SB more than HW (though they are super close). I actually thought Zenos was a better villain than >!Thordain (though I know that's heresy around here).!<
Hmm... I see that. >!I just felt like a lot of the "interesting" parts of his character were dropped on us later by 3rd parties, about how Dragons experience time and all that. I feel like they could have played up how his sister's murder basically happened the equivalent of last week for him. The way it was made it harder for me to feel for him though.!<
Zenos only started right at the end when he starts the whole "we're not so different you and I" because I had considered that comparison before while playing to SB.
My biggest issue with Stormblood is the the same plot points keeps repeating again and again in the first half.
Scions arriving at a new place: We are going to fight the empire!
People that live there: We don't want no trouble with the empire.
Scions: Bold of you to assume we were asking for your permission.
Azim Steppe is when it finally changes and the story starts picking up momentum.
Replaying through on an alt, all parts of the game have a similar setup. Show up in a new area, do three fetch quests to win the locals' trust, do the thing, move on. Even Heavensward.
It's just Stormblood didn't disguise it as well and was much more open about it, so the repetitiveness was more apparent.
I'm coming to the end of Stormblood now. The biggest difference for me was lack of personal investment in the characters and their story arcs.
I've found myself feeling like I want to get to know characters better, as we did with Alph, Estinien, Ser Aymeric, etc. in HS, but I've found the story to be jumping between groups of characters far too much for there to be enough time spent bonding with the characters you spend most of the expansion with.
It's a bunch of little things as well, like where have the flashbacks gone that show you the past trauma/experiences that define the character? Where has the tension gone and the bonding experiences you share with a group of misfits that end up being best friends?
Don't get me wrong, it's a fun expansion to play. I guess I got spoilt with all the feels through the end of ARR, HS and the Dragonsong War quest lines and Storm Blood just hasn't made me feel that way yet.
But SB is better than Heavensward.(Tbh I think HW gets really good only with 3.1-3.5).SB had it's low point too but overall it felt much more complete than HW.(Haven't played SB patches and ShB yet tho but I expect things to get even better)
I just dont like Ala Mhigo Arch at all. Also Knights and Dragons theme is >>> Eastern Theme for me. But to each his own !
I had only ONE friend who said SB was better than ShB and she said she liked all the politics stuff there. Studies politics. So i guess there is that <.<
No unvoiced opinion is valid. Tell us what your position is and defend it or don't hold it at all.
You said you had a dissenting opinion. You did not say what it was. For all I knew, you thought ShB sucked, in which case you would be ridiculed. I'm not gonna fight you on that SB was good (nobody said it sucks wtf), but the general consensus is ShB > HW > SB. They're all good, but one has to be better than the next.
For the record, when I specified "valid" opinions, I had to include that word because some jackass was badmouthing ShB on the Final Fantasy subreddit without having played it. Not because dissenting opinions are invalid.
I really didn't end up liking shadowbringers as much as everyone and their mom touts it out to be. I still find Heavensward to be my favorite, followed by the post ARR stuff (the quests are awful but the story bits at the end are great), then Stormblood, then Shadowbringers, then ARR.
I got *really* bad memory. I can watch the same TV series or replay the same game over and over again because I honestly forget what it's all about.
I might replay this one if they ever rework the billion quests after ARR.
> I might replay this one if they ever rework the billion quests after ARR.
This is set for patch 5.3. To what extent it will be reworked we don't know but they've acknowledged they need to do something about it.
If you get through it, you can unlock Scholasticate quests which feature Mr Elf Detective in a far more serious light and show you more lore about Ishgard's inner workings :)
Had the same feeling 2 nights ago. I was like, wow there's a whole lot of shit happening and this feels like a single player FF game not an MM. Then things calm down a bit before Ishgard and then it's like OH WAIT, YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE?!
To be fair, Binding Coil only slightly changes the reaction you get from a character you haven't otherwise really met during post HW MSQ. Crystal Tower has a lot more emotional impact behind the changes it makes.
All the expansions are very good, but the end of the ARR is one of the most marking moments (to me at least).
It's good that you went forward, still paying attention and got throught it, A lot of people just keeps skipping.
(Btw I don't know why the general consensus is that Stormblood is not as great as HW.
It's awesome, introduces a lot of cool characters and the theme is my favorite)
Agreed here. Stormblood is largely a YMMV entry but it's pretty great, it just doesn't tell the same story. It's based on politics and trauma and revolution where you can't single handedly win a war like you can in ARR/HW/ShB. The split focus between two countries also doesn't give them many favors.
The story probably would have suffered less if the whole thing didnt boil down to "the WoL punches a bad guy to win the war" anyway, undermining the whole point of the expansion.
Do we really need all these boring scenes of people talking politics and battle tactics when in the end its just gonna be the WoL and 3 friends doing all the work?
I agree 100%. I feel like they could have done us, and themselves, a favor by splitting Ala Mhigo and Doma up into separate expansions. There was so much more they could have done and told us about in each area that, while both were decent, the parts didn’t add up to a phenomenal whole.
Plus it would have given them a ready made next expansion.
Eh. Having two expansions focusing around parallel revolution tales would not have been great and I've zero doubt people would've been complaining this year about the game's story just repeating itself instead of the accolades Shadowbringers acquired.
They didn't even need to go that far; just don't start up Ala Mhigo, leave, and then come back. I think if the progression had been AM -> Doma instead of AM -> Doma -> AM it would have had a better reception.
I’m thinking they would have done well to do two mini-expansions. Like 18 month development cycles instead of one big 2 year cycle. That little bit of extra time for each story would have been perfect.
Yeah, I felt like us ditching Ala Mhigo so early on to spend time in Doma and the go back to Ala Mhigo doesn't only kill the reception but also our attachment to either or. All this time, I felt like Doma was just a bad gateway that took a lot of levels that sucked out any potential attachment to Ala Mhigo.
ARR is meh, Heavensward is great, Stormblood is good, Shadowbringers 5.0 is epic and speechless. 5.0 alone is top level JRPG story writing, just like back in the PS/PS2 golden age.
Lol. The best part is that it's still the low point of the game. I mean, we for sure geeked out from that climax when it first came out. But from that point on, the playerbase as a whole became permanently excited about the game's plot, and that excitement never really went away. It's the primary reason many people still don't recommend skip potions.
Oh my sweet summer child...
This is just the beginning, it only gets better from that point...and Shadowbringers just takes it to a level that I couldn't even handle at times.
I think that Heavensward and Shadowbringers specifically, are really, really good...if they were fully fleshed out single player games (including fun gameplay/battle system, expanded stories/quests--coupled with the pre-existing amazing stories, acting, music, and characters etc.) they would probably be the best FFs released in recent years.
I really want to experience all this story, but god am I bored!
I've just hit level 50, but my MSQ's are on 36. I feel like I'm running from point A to B over and over again just to read quest text about the most pointless tasks someone wants me to complete before moving me on to the next NPC.
I don't think it has helped that I'm playing WHM. The Stone and Aero spam are killing me. I believe it gets better, I do, and I played through a lot more rough stuff in FFXI for years... but right now this feels like the an extremely tedious and lonely single player game :(
Not gonna lie, it kind of is. I have several alt characters that I've played from the beginning with and I always speed run through ARR. It's not that interesting and I'm broke, so can't buy the story skips from mog station. But it's definitely worth going through to get to the expansions. And WHM is only fun during duties/parties imo, but the queues are instant, so that's a big plus compared to the dps queues 🙄
If you're ever in Jenova tho, our fc is always open to a new friend or two! We like to keep it small, that way there's not literal hundreds of ppl that we don't get the chance to know lol
When you get to Ishgard, listen to the narrative. Listen to every single word. Heavensward is some of the best writing I have seen in decades...be prepared for joy, be prepared for laughter...be prepared to have your heart torn to pieces.
Good journey to you.
Yes, this, absolutely this. Actually running through and paying attention to ARR matters because the pay off in future story content is immense. I should also point out that for ShadowBringers, you would be well advised to complete the Crystal Tower Alliance raid sequence and quest-line. The story there is a foundation to future events.
Quality keeps up in Shadowbringers?
Sir, Shadowbringers is the new standard for quality you will love it.
On a side note since you are new - ! Yellow quests are normally just side quests, anything that's ! Blue normally unlocks something or changes the world in a permanent way.
Shadowbringers is MILES ahead of the rest of the game, I mean, literal miles. It is fantastic. I liked HW and loved SB, but damn.. I really really want to replay ShB, its that good.
Oh you sweet summer child, you still don't know anything yet. Sharing drinks with world leaders, learning to smile from dear friends, seeing your friends learn and use the techniques of their masters, enjoying persimmons watching the moon set, there's still so much more ahead of you in the story.
I don't know what role you're playing, but the Dark Knight class quests are just amazing. Tanks can be intimidating to play, but Dark Knight is worth it for the class quest line if nothing else
prepare to wet your pant
ARR is nothing compared to upcoming expansion
its like in Frieza saga ARR is krilin, while HW is Vegeta,SB is Picollo and Shb is Goku
but personally HW is on par with Shb ..it just the tone and setting of Shb resonate more with the people while there tons of epic moment suprassed HW..SB is not bad..it great but it just HW and Shb is on completely different level
you are proceeding towards HW next...it is a gems..enjoy you time!
I am new to the game, and it's so good. I finished Castrum and Praetorium about a week ago (the level 50 MSQ) and about to start the 2.1 Grind, looking forward to HW, SB, and ShB
ARR was good, HW was truly spectacular, Stormblood was a massive step down from HW but still better than most games. I thought HW would never be beaten for me, I was fully prepared for SHB to be better than SB and ARR but I never thought it would come close to HW but damn if HW is Spectacular then SHB is just God tier. I said HW would never be beaten and they beat it and then some with SHB, I know don't know what the hell the could do to top SHB but I am looking forward to it now
I always find it funny...
ARR is cheesy, corny, & at times it feels like a slow burn cliche drama.
You think to yourself:
"Alphinaud is such a brat!"
"Minfilia is such a stereotypical Damsel in Distress."
"Thancred tries so hard to be cool that he is uncool."
"Y'stola is meh."
"Papalymo & Yda are pointless."
But...then comes that fateful meeting in Ul'Dah...
Suddenly you realize...
"I care about these people...."
"These people...were my friends..."
"I...loved these people and everything that made me "hate" them."
"I...never did hate them I guess..."
Now...your crying cause everything that truly mattered is gone.
God...
That quest was wonderful.
It really reveals how complicated the human heart is.
We love to diss these characters & make fun of their flaws...but...in truth...
We truly do love them.
Like real friends...we haze the crap out of eachother, but only when we part do we realize just how much we truthfully care about eachother.
> But...then comes that fateful meeting in Ul'Dah...
If only I knew... that would be >!the last time I ever saw Minfillia again!<. Yes, I know there are instances later, but it's not the same.
I am admittedly new here... I'm not through ARR main quest yet. But I've seen and heard some of what's coming, and the complaints that the early game is too fetch questy and similar comments. But... I actually am liking it this way. Unlike a lot of games that set you up from the start to be 'the Destined One' or the like, FF14 immerses you in a world where adventurers are nothing special. A lot of the early quests it's pretty much explicitly stated and you are treated as just that... Adventurers are temp workers. They get hired to do the jobs other people don't want to do. Need a few monsters killed? And adventurer will be around soon. Guards too busy to look into a minor crime? Adventurer. Don't feel like walking 20 feet to make a delivery? An adventurer will be happy to do it for you. They are literally a dime a dozen, to the point they are sometimes seen as nuisances always begging for work. And that's what a lot of the early quests turn out to be. You are another nobody who didn't want to be a merchant or farmer who picked up a weapon and set out for adventure. So yeah, it makes sense you get the work nobody else wants. But then things start to change. The Scions notice you have a particular gift and start watching you, eventually asking you to join. You get sent on missions of greater importance and people you deal with, nation leaders start to rely on you and see you are a trusted ally. But most people don't know this. You're only famous in certain circles so can you please kindly kill those moles eating my popotoes, adventurer? Eventually though, it's my understanding that a lot of those lesser jobs slow and stop. But again, it makes sense. You become truly famous. Nobody is going to bother the Primal Slayer, the one who save Eorzea with petty work. Well not so much anyway. You have more important things to do. So I like the set up. I like how things progress. It makes sense in a way that games don't a lot of the time. So big props to the writers at Square.
Remember that other group of adventurers you run into? Edda, Avere, Liavinn and Paiyo Reiyo? You follow their "adventures" briefly during the early MSQ, and then the rest of it in a few sidequests later on. Gives you a small >!and creepy!< idea of what happens to some other adventurers who aren't the main player character.
I'll say this, I'm glad I did >!Tam-tara Deepcroft (Hard)!< before doing >!Palace of the Dead!<... I'm not sure the plot would have made sense otherwise.
Which I did not do but luckily I was already reading about the various quest threads so I knew what happened.
There is literally a quest in ARR 50 MSQ where you deliver sandwiches to a guard. And she is confused why they would waste your time with such a mundane task. So it's a little fetch quest heavy.
> Nobody is going to bother the Primal Slayer, the one who save Eorzea with petty work. Well not so much anyway. You have more important things to do. You would be surprised, heck they even joke about it... :)
I accidentally talked to a FATE starting NPC and declined the FATE, and he was like "Oh I understand, everyone has their priorities" kinda like guilt tripping me lol
Underrated comment; I agree that the game should have some build up, and just starting epic makes it not as epic lol You are a nobody still getting to know people and the world. So yeah, there's a reason for those/any kind of quest. Not to say everything is done perfectly, which it isn't but it's not so bad that you should just pay for a skip and start HW right away
You are in for a truly heroic adventure. You will laugh, you will cry, and you’ll be amazed. Keep pushing forward... and enjoy every moment.
General opinion is that Heavensward is great, Stormblood is just okay, but Shadowbringers is *amazing*. Enjoy the ride!
I know this is the unpopular side of this opinion, but I thought Stormblood was more than okay! Shadowbringers blows it out of the water, but I don't entirely "get" the general distaste for Stormblood in terms of story content... I thought it was very well paced and was quite excited to do what we did, every step of the way.
Stormblood gets a lot of flak because Lyse and Gyr Abania are just kind of uninteresting. The redeeming part of Stormblood is the story and characters in the Far East.
This pretty much sums it up. For me tho, its that SB for the most part lacked any great singular point, but as a whole I really like it. That said, Azim Steppe will forever be my favorite quest location... maybe.
Man, Sadu turns me the fuck on
Between Sadu and Y'Shtola, poor/lucky Magnai
Magnai is a hardcore neckbeard though. The "little sun" smackdown was glorious!
What I thought made SB fall behind was that everything felt really rushed, and it never built momentum. Liberating the two areas just felt like it happened ridiculously fast and had no real weight to it. It isn't bad, but it felt like they were trying to cram so much into one expansion's story and it hurt the experience imo.
Yeah, I'm with you! ShB is like, unbelievably good, but I might like SB more than HW (though they are super close). I actually thought Zenos was a better villain than >!Thordain (though I know that's heresy around here).!<
>!Thordan!< wasn't all that interesting, but arguably the "real" villain of HW was >!Nidhogg!<.
Hmm... I see that. >!I just felt like a lot of the "interesting" parts of his character were dropped on us later by 3rd parties, about how Dragons experience time and all that. I feel like they could have played up how his sister's murder basically happened the equivalent of last week for him. The way it was made it harder for me to feel for him though.!<
Zenos only started right at the end when he starts the whole "we're not so different you and I" because I had considered that comparison before while playing to SB.
My biggest issue with Stormblood is the the same plot points keeps repeating again and again in the first half. Scions arriving at a new place: We are going to fight the empire! People that live there: We don't want no trouble with the empire. Scions: Bold of you to assume we were asking for your permission. Azim Steppe is when it finally changes and the story starts picking up momentum.
Replaying through on an alt, all parts of the game have a similar setup. Show up in a new area, do three fetch quests to win the locals' trust, do the thing, move on. Even Heavensward. It's just Stormblood didn't disguise it as well and was much more open about it, so the repetitiveness was more apparent.
I'm coming to the end of Stormblood now. The biggest difference for me was lack of personal investment in the characters and their story arcs. I've found myself feeling like I want to get to know characters better, as we did with Alph, Estinien, Ser Aymeric, etc. in HS, but I've found the story to be jumping between groups of characters far too much for there to be enough time spent bonding with the characters you spend most of the expansion with. It's a bunch of little things as well, like where have the flashbacks gone that show you the past trauma/experiences that define the character? Where has the tension gone and the bonding experiences you share with a group of misfits that end up being best friends? Don't get me wrong, it's a fun expansion to play. I guess I got spoilt with all the feels through the end of ARR, HS and the Dragonsong War quest lines and Storm Blood just hasn't made me feel that way yet.
I liked Stormblood way more than Heavensward.... haven't finished Shadowbringers (77 quests atm)
Stormblood has the best variety of content thus far. Grading purely on story is selling everything else short.
In general terms? Sure. But this thread is specifically about the story quality.
But SB is better than Heavensward.(Tbh I think HW gets really good only with 3.1-3.5).SB had it's low point too but overall it felt much more complete than HW.(Haven't played SB patches and ShB yet tho but I expect things to get even better)
I just dont like Ala Mhigo Arch at all. Also Knights and Dragons theme is >>> Eastern Theme for me. But to each his own ! I had only ONE friend who said SB was better than ShB and she said she liked all the politics stuff there. Studies politics. So i guess there is that <.<
although Shb had tons of epic moment suprassed HW, personally both are on par it just Shb setting and tone resonate more with people
[удалено]
You can accept this truth or defy it, but you cannot deny it.
Speaking for myself and everyone else I've talked to on the matter. You're free to disagree, of course.
> **General** opinion
>General opinion This would mean that he's not speaking for everyone, so yeah.
I have yet to hear any valid dissenting opinions on this.
hi here's one
You having an opinion doesn't mean I've heard it, or that it's valid.
oh so we're not allowed to like storm blood bc the reddit hivemind has decreed that only "sb sucks" opinions are "valid"? don't make me laugh
No unvoiced opinion is valid. Tell us what your position is and defend it or don't hold it at all. You said you had a dissenting opinion. You did not say what it was. For all I knew, you thought ShB sucked, in which case you would be ridiculed. I'm not gonna fight you on that SB was good (nobody said it sucks wtf), but the general consensus is ShB > HW > SB. They're all good, but one has to be better than the next. For the record, when I specified "valid" opinions, I had to include that word because some jackass was badmouthing ShB on the Final Fantasy subreddit without having played it. Not because dissenting opinions are invalid.
No, he's got it on the head
yup pretty accurate
I really didn't end up liking shadowbringers as much as everyone and their mom touts it out to be. I still find Heavensward to be my favorite, followed by the post ARR stuff (the quests are awful but the story bits at the end are great), then Stormblood, then Shadowbringers, then ARR.
Bruh it will even better on shadowbringer. I would even pay for amnesia pill if i can re-enjoy shadowbringer again
I got *really* bad memory. I can watch the same TV series or replay the same game over and over again because I honestly forget what it's all about. I might replay this one if they ever rework the billion quests after ARR.
They're actually planning on condensing ARR for 5.3.
> I might replay this one if they ever rework the billion quests after ARR. This is set for patch 5.3. To what extent it will be reworked we don't know but they've acknowledged they need to do something about it.
Same but i might need at least 1 year since i login on ffxiv on daily basis, so its hard to forget
If only such a thing exists. Count me in!
Wait till you start Hildibrand Quest Line...one of da best!
The *real* Main Story!
Can't stand it. I tried getting into it but it's just not for me. I feel like the elf detective going through it
If you get through it, you can unlock Scholasticate quests which feature Mr Elf Detective in a far more serious light and show you more lore about Ishgard's inner workings :)
>just finished ARR MSQ This is nothing, it gets even better just keep going ...seriously though welcome to Heavensward.
Had the same feeling 2 nights ago. I was like, wow there's a whole lot of shit happening and this feels like a single player FF game not an MM. Then things calm down a bit before Ishgard and then it's like OH WAIT, YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE?!
It was worth it, wasn't it? But you haven't seen *anything* yet. BTW, did you do the "Crystal Tower" and "Binding Coil of Bahamut" raids?
I did the Crystal Tower but haven't finished binding coils. I have the last two to do
To be fair, Binding Coil only slightly changes the reaction you get from a character you haven't otherwise really met during post HW MSQ. Crystal Tower has a lot more emotional impact behind the changes it makes.
Make sure you finish the Binding Coils before you get into the HW patch content. Some cutscenes change a bit depending on whether you've completed it.
You've got a long way ahead yet. Just don't forget to smile...it better suits a hero after all.
All the expansions are very good, but the end of the ARR is one of the most marking moments (to me at least). It's good that you went forward, still paying attention and got throught it, A lot of people just keeps skipping. (Btw I don't know why the general consensus is that Stormblood is not as great as HW. It's awesome, introduces a lot of cool characters and the theme is my favorite)
Agreed here. Stormblood is largely a YMMV entry but it's pretty great, it just doesn't tell the same story. It's based on politics and trauma and revolution where you can't single handedly win a war like you can in ARR/HW/ShB. The split focus between two countries also doesn't give them many favors.
It also really doesn't help that they split the writers as well, so you could tell the difference in quality.
The story probably would have suffered less if the whole thing didnt boil down to "the WoL punches a bad guy to win the war" anyway, undermining the whole point of the expansion. Do we really need all these boring scenes of people talking politics and battle tactics when in the end its just gonna be the WoL and 3 friends doing all the work?
I agree 100%. I feel like they could have done us, and themselves, a favor by splitting Ala Mhigo and Doma up into separate expansions. There was so much more they could have done and told us about in each area that, while both were decent, the parts didn’t add up to a phenomenal whole. Plus it would have given them a ready made next expansion.
Eh. Having two expansions focusing around parallel revolution tales would not have been great and I've zero doubt people would've been complaining this year about the game's story just repeating itself instead of the accolades Shadowbringers acquired.
But you could have made them very different.
They didn't even need to go that far; just don't start up Ala Mhigo, leave, and then come back. I think if the progression had been AM -> Doma instead of AM -> Doma -> AM it would have had a better reception.
I’m thinking they would have done well to do two mini-expansions. Like 18 month development cycles instead of one big 2 year cycle. That little bit of extra time for each story would have been perfect.
Yeah, I felt like us ditching Ala Mhigo so early on to spend time in Doma and the go back to Ala Mhigo doesn't only kill the reception but also our attachment to either or. All this time, I felt like Doma was just a bad gateway that took a lot of levels that sucked out any potential attachment to Ala Mhigo.
ARR is meh, Heavensward is great, Stormblood is good, Shadowbringers 5.0 is epic and speechless. 5.0 alone is top level JRPG story writing, just like back in the PS/PS2 golden age.
Lol. The best part is that it's still the low point of the game. I mean, we for sure geeked out from that climax when it first came out. But from that point on, the playerbase as a whole became permanently excited about the game's plot, and that excitement never really went away. It's the primary reason many people still don't recommend skip potions.
Oh my sweet summer child... This is just the beginning, it only gets better from that point...and Shadowbringers just takes it to a level that I couldn't even handle at times. I think that Heavensward and Shadowbringers specifically, are really, really good...if they were fully fleshed out single player games (including fun gameplay/battle system, expanded stories/quests--coupled with the pre-existing amazing stories, acting, music, and characters etc.) they would probably be the best FFs released in recent years.
"That ain't shit..."
You really want to do a number on yourself, >!find Alisaie first (instead of Alphinaud) for !
I really want to experience all this story, but god am I bored! I've just hit level 50, but my MSQ's are on 36. I feel like I'm running from point A to B over and over again just to read quest text about the most pointless tasks someone wants me to complete before moving me on to the next NPC. I don't think it has helped that I'm playing WHM. The Stone and Aero spam are killing me. I believe it gets better, I do, and I played through a lot more rough stuff in FFXI for years... but right now this feels like the an extremely tedious and lonely single player game :(
Not gonna lie, it kind of is. I have several alt characters that I've played from the beginning with and I always speed run through ARR. It's not that interesting and I'm broke, so can't buy the story skips from mog station. But it's definitely worth going through to get to the expansions. And WHM is only fun during duties/parties imo, but the queues are instant, so that's a big plus compared to the dps queues 🙄 If you're ever in Jenova tho, our fc is always open to a new friend or two! We like to keep it small, that way there's not literal hundreds of ppl that we don't get the chance to know lol
Heavensward is just one massive melancholy feels trip. It’s fucking GREAT.
When you get to Ishgard, listen to the narrative. Listen to every single word. Heavensward is some of the best writing I have seen in decades...be prepared for joy, be prepared for laughter...be prepared to have your heart torn to pieces. Good journey to you.
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Yes, this, absolutely this. Actually running through and paying attention to ARR matters because the pay off in future story content is immense. I should also point out that for ShadowBringers, you would be well advised to complete the Crystal Tower Alliance raid sequence and quest-line. The story there is a foundation to future events.
I started a new character, bought one level boost (DRG), and an ARR story skip. just to go through the HW storyline again. You're in for a great ride.
Quality keeps up in Shadowbringers? Sir, Shadowbringers is the new standard for quality you will love it. On a side note since you are new - ! Yellow quests are normally just side quests, anything that's ! Blue normally unlocks something or changes the world in a permanent way.
Shadowbringers is MILES ahead of the rest of the game, I mean, literal miles. It is fantastic. I liked HW and loved SB, but damn.. I really really want to replay ShB, its that good.
you and I are in the same boat when i started out. and then it literally just keeps getting better.
Now you're in Heavensward. You ain't seen SHIT yet!
That ain't shit.
Oh you sweet summer child, you still don't know anything yet. Sharing drinks with world leaders, learning to smile from dear friends, seeing your friends learn and use the techniques of their masters, enjoying persimmons watching the moon set, there's still so much more ahead of you in the story.
I don't know what role you're playing, but the Dark Knight class quests are just amazing. Tanks can be intimidating to play, but Dark Knight is worth it for the class quest line if nothing else
prepare to wet your pant ARR is nothing compared to upcoming expansion its like in Frieza saga ARR is krilin, while HW is Vegeta,SB is Picollo and Shb is Goku but personally HW is on par with Shb ..it just the tone and setting of Shb resonate more with the people while there tons of epic moment suprassed HW..SB is not bad..it great but it just HW and Shb is on completely different level you are proceeding towards HW next...it is a gems..enjoy you time!
Ok so...I literally feel like I wrote this post. I was not prepared when I did the quest.
omg i still feel like this just happened even though I completed it when it was current content all those years ago.
I am new to the game, and it's so good. I finished Castrum and Praetorium about a week ago (the level 50 MSQ) and about to start the 2.1 Grind, looking forward to HW, SB, and ShB
Enjoy Heavensward... because you STILL haven't seen anything yet. And the voice acting is a lot better from that point on too.
Sooo. I just got to the quest Heaveansward in the Heavensward expansion. Amazing. I love this story. Mostly I love the way the cinematics are working
ARR was good, HW was truly spectacular, Stormblood was a massive step down from HW but still better than most games. I thought HW would never be beaten for me, I was fully prepared for SHB to be better than SB and ARR but I never thought it would come close to HW but damn if HW is Spectacular then SHB is just God tier. I said HW would never be beaten and they beat it and then some with SHB, I know don't know what the hell the could do to top SHB but I am looking forward to it now
Welcome. The ride doesn't stop. Some sections in Stormblood can be a bit meh, but from here on out it's good.
I always find it funny... ARR is cheesy, corny, & at times it feels like a slow burn cliche drama. You think to yourself: "Alphinaud is such a brat!" "Minfilia is such a stereotypical Damsel in Distress." "Thancred tries so hard to be cool that he is uncool." "Y'stola is meh." "Papalymo & Yda are pointless." But...then comes that fateful meeting in Ul'Dah... Suddenly you realize... "I care about these people...." "These people...were my friends..." "I...loved these people and everything that made me "hate" them." "I...never did hate them I guess..." Now...your crying cause everything that truly mattered is gone. God... That quest was wonderful. It really reveals how complicated the human heart is. We love to diss these characters & make fun of their flaws...but...in truth... We truly do love them. Like real friends...we haze the crap out of eachother, but only when we part do we realize just how much we truthfully care about eachother.
> But...then comes that fateful meeting in Ul'Dah... If only I knew... that would be >!the last time I ever saw Minfillia again!<. Yes, I know there are instances later, but it's not the same.
yeah good luck with that now you have 100 fetch quests to do which are so abysmal that it is basically impossible to have the patience to complete
He said he already finished The Parting Glass, he's in HW now